The present disclosure relates to an improved system for mounting an optical device to headgear such as a field helmet, and specifically, a mount with a pivot axis for flipping an attached optical device to a flipped or stowed position, which is elevated out of the user's line of sight when the optical device is not in use. The optical device may be, without limitation, a night vision device enabling viewing under nighttime or other low light conditions, such as night vision goggles (NVG) or electronic night vision goggles (eNVG), night vision binocular devices, night vision monocular devices, etc., with or without magnification.